March U.S. Hardware Sales Confirm PSP Figures

Author: by David Jenkins, Simon Carless

The first details of console hardware sales in the U.S. during March have emerged, with sales of the PSP in its launch month revealed as 620,000 units, according to analysts quoting NPD reports. This performance seems to justify the description by many analysts of a 'solid, but not spectacular' launch, since Sony shipped approaching 1 million units to stores for launch. 1.1 million units of PSP software were sold following the handheld's launch on March 24th and before the end of the month, for what would normally be regarded as a relatively unremarkable attach rate of around 2:1. Online reports confirm that Sony's Twisted Metal: Head On was the top seller at around 120,000 units, although EA's Need For Speed Underground: Rivals outgrossed it with marginally less sales, due to a higher price point. SOE's Untold Legends also topped 100,000 sold, and further down the list, buzz-heavy puzzle title Lumines outsold Namco's woefully undersupplied Ridge Racer and even Activision's well-received Tony Hawk's Underground 2: Remix. The PlayStation 2 was the second-best selling console of the month, with a very healthy 495,000 units sold, as the format fully recovers from stock problems over the Christmas period. The stock situation for the Xbox appears to be getting worse, though, with only 227,000 units sold during March, and no suggestion that the situation will ever fully recover, in the light of the launch of the next generation Xbox later in the year. Sales of the GameCube were put at just 94,000 units, with the format appearing to have lost all momentum in the U.S. Data for the Nintendo DS is less detailed in the analyst reports released via Reuters, with only a figure of 428,000 available for the whole three months from January to March, but Nintendo's handheld still seems to have some positive traction.